


An Un-Birthday Present

by thisiszircon



Series: The Moment of Awakening [10]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: F/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 12:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16040198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiszircon/pseuds/thisiszircon
Summary: Ace tries to do something nice for the Doctor.  Between Ace's ulterior motives and the Doctor's suspicious nature, things fail to go entirely to plan.





	An Un-Birthday Present

**Author's Note:**

> With grateful thanks to my invaluable beta-reader and editor, [Nemo the Everbeing](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemo_the_Everbeing)

_Hackney Empire, London  
October 2007_

 

"What are we doing here?" the Doctor asked.

"We're having an evening out," Ace replied.

"Ah."

"In Hackney," she added helpfully.

"Yes.  Hackney."  A pause.  "And what are we going to be doing in Hackney?"

"Having an evening out," she repeated.  "You know.  Doing something fun.  Just you and me."

"Right.  Yes."  The Doctor gave a vague smile.  "Something fun.  My favourite."

Ace tried to keep her sense of anticipation under wraps, though knowing there was a surprise in store made it difficult.  She wasn't sure why she hadn't thought of this sooner.  Once the idea had occurred, it had seemed so obvious.

The Doctor had, on several occasions, gone out of his way to do something nice for her.  So why couldn't she return the favour?

"You only had to say if you wanted to go somewhere," he said, trying to sound pleasant and reassuring but unable to hide the grumble.  He really did hate being out of the loop.

"I know," Ace acknowledged.

"So why the secrecy?"

"I let you input the date and location, didn't I?"

The Doctor huffed at her.  "How accommodating of you, to allow me to control my own TARDIS."

Ace grinned.  "Don't mention it."

And the thing of it was, she _should_ have thought of this sooner.  She'd had plenty of pointers, after all.  The galaxies were teeming with grateful recipients of the Doctor's assistance, and the TARDIS was littered with tokens of their esteem.  Some were intricate and expensive: the Draconians had thanked the Doctor for fixing one of their spaceships by presenting him with a beautiful scale model of the craft, sculpted in a rare copper-coloured onyx from the Draconian mines on Auctoria.  It was in a display case in the library and Ace had walked past it a hundred times without really processing what it meant.  Other gifts were more casual, more spontaneous, perhaps more touching: there was, for instance, a childish drawing of a blue box and a pair of figures standing next to it, which had – for as long as Ace could remember – been stuck to the inside of one of the tool cabinets in the workshop by means of a Kermit-the-Frog fridge magnet.  On the bottom of the drawing 'Thank you Doctor' was written in lopsided letters.

Once Ace had got to thinking about this, it had shamed her to realise that she'd never so much as bought the Doctor a present.  She had therefore decided it was time she added herself to the list of people who could be bothered to show their appreciation.  And if, in the process, the Doctor noticed her newfound maturity and thoughtfulness and was overcome with feelings of affection, perhaps even felt the need to offer a grateful cuddle...well.  All to the good.

"So we're going to the theatre, then, are we?" the Doctor asked.

Ace considered the wall of the building beside them, the various wall-mounted displays holding posters for upcoming productions, the queue of people they were standing in.  "Do you know, I think you might be right," she said flatly.

"Well?"

"Fine, thanks.  How are you?"

He pulled his lips tight in a scowl and looked away.

Ace hid a sigh.  This evening out was beginning with less excitement and appreciation than she'd hoped for.  She might have started to second-guess the whole plan, right there and then.  In truth, though, she'd been doing that for days.

Because the 'do-something-nice' idea had quickly turned into a puzzle.  What was the best choice of gift?  What did you get for the man who already has everything?  She'd put a real shift in as she'd worked the problem through.  She'd made lists of the things she knew the Doctor liked.  She'd researched and she'd planned.  This gesture had to be something meaningful, something personal.  Something that demonstrated how she not only cared for the Doctor but she understood him, too.

Ace knew that a badly-chosen gift, offered only because a gift is expected, could do more harm than no gift at all.  (Most of her childhood Christmases and birthdays had provided evidence enough of this particular truth.)  And if anything seemed to sum up her current relationship with the Time Lord, then it was the phrase 'First do no harm.'

She shot him a careful sideways glance as he sulked.  Was this a mistake?  Had she screwed everything up?

Was she doing harm?

As if he sensed her scrutiny, he turned back.  "Ace," the Doctor said, less grumbling now, more wheedling.

"Professor."

"A tiny clue would help."

"Why?"

He blinked.  He opened his mouth, closed it again.  He frowned, unable to answer.  "Um..."

Ace shook her head in resignation.  "You're hopeless, you are."

She glanced around at the other people in the queue.  They were an eclectic bunch.  London had always been multicultural, but here, in this street, on this night, London felt more joyfully diverse than usual.  Which was fitting, given the show they were about to see.

Because after all of her puzzling and her planning, she'd realised that it _had_ to be music.  For all the other things that the Doctor enjoyed, Ace had never seen him quite so swept away as when he listened to music.  And there was a symmetry here too.  The first generous thing the Doctor had done for Ace – after taking her into his home, that is – was to build her a ghetto-blaster to replace the one that had met with an unfortunate Dalek-shaped mishap.  More recently they'd celebrated her twentieth birthday at Woodstock.  Music was important to both of them.  It was something they could share.

The queue moved forward.  Around the corner, it seemed the doors had opened.

"So you're not even going to tell me what we're here to see?" the Doctor griped.

He wouldn't be wondering for much longer.  Just up ahead, Ace could see a large billboard sporting a poster for tonight's concert: a jazz opera co-written by Julian Joseph, starring Cleveland Watkiss, both of whom had worked with Courtney Pine.  _Bridgetower_ , it was called.  About a mixed-race violin virtuoso who'd been born at the end of the eighteenth century to parents in domestic servitude in Hungary.  On the back of his musical talent he'd found himself in London where he became a favourite of the Prince Regent.  A non-white guy, born into poverty, who'd ended up a mate of Beethoven's, no less.  This was a tale of rags to riches, of overcoming prejudice.  And the story was driven by mankind's passion for music.

It had sounded right up the Doctor's street, to Ace.  The hard work had been in making sure that, at some point in the Doctor's past, _he_ hadn't been the one to introduce George Bridgetower to Beethoven, or George III, or whatever.  She'd been meticulous in her research and was as certain as she could be.  Still, when you were dealing with someone whose past consisted of almost ten centuries of near-constant meddling, it was difficult to cover every single possibility.

The two of them walked past the poster as the queue shuffled towards the theatre entrance.

"Ah," the Doctor said.  "Bridgetower – that's the name of a person, is it?"

Ace managed to keep her poker-face intact.  "You mean you don't know?"

"No."

"Not an old mate of yours?  Someone you might occasionally drop in on for tea?"

"No."  He was getting irritated again.

"So this might be something new, for you?" Ace asked.

"Ace!" he complained.

"Just be patient."  Oh, it felt good to say that to him!  "In less than half an hour we're going to find out all about George Bridgetower."

"Yes, but–"

"Now, now," she said, trying to tease.  "You wouldn't want me to spoil the surprise, would you?"

He tried a glare.  "You can be quite infuriating."

"Maybe so, but it's good fun.  I can see why you do it so much."

The Doctor pouted and looked away.

They turned a corner and the movement of the queue stalled.  It'd be a security thing.  Ace had long since realised that these early years of the millennium were all about the bag-searches.

"How did you get the tickets?" the Doctor asked.  Because he wouldn't let anything go, and if direct questions didn't gain him any answers then he'd come at the problem tangentially.

"Oh, your credit card collection remains unsullied," she said airily.  "Fear not."

"You only had to ask–"

"Yes, I know, you already said.  And if I'd asked, the surprise would have been spoiled."  Ace looked up at the London evening sky, dusky orange with reflected street-lighting.  "By the way, making your best friend _ask_ for stuff all the time?  That is definitely an issue we're going to have to discuss."

There was a pause.  "Is it?" the Doctor asked.

"It isn't nice to be completely dependent on another person," she clarified.

His brow furrowed.  "That seems a rather stark assessment of our friendship."

"Accurate, though.  If you think about it.  I mean, we can't avoid most of the inequalities.  You're the ancient powerful alien, I'm the mere mortal – not a lot we can do about that.  But always having to ask for things rather than sort them out myself?  That makes it worse."

"Ace–"

"Don't worry.  I'm not asking for a wage or anything.  I'm just saying – travelling with you, there's practicalities.  I didn't notice them when I was sixteen.  Too childish, maybe, too selfish."  She winced at her own words.  "But I'm not sixteen anymore.  These things affect my sense of independence."  She looked away and shrugged her shoulders awkwardly.  "I, er, thought it might be worth mentioning.  Anyway."

A moment passed as he considered this.  "Fair enough," he conceded.  "We'll work something out."

Relieved by this, she met his eyes and tried to speak lightly.  "You can still pay for my gin and tonic in the interval.  I'm not proud."

He gave a smile.  The queue started moving again, just for a few moments, then stopped.  "You haven't told me how you got the tickets."

"Haven't I?" she said, all wide-eyed innocence.

"Ace!"

Fine.  He deserved an answer after all that.  "Bought them."

"With what?"

"Money."

"And where did you get the money?"

She shrugged.  "Sold some things, a few weeks back.  Remember when I asked you to drop me in Tunbridge Wells before we went back to Mrs Bulwell's cottage?"

The Doctor frowned.  "What did you sell?"

"Doesn't matter."  Her greatest profit had come when she'd sold her programme from the Charlton-Sunderland play-off final from 1998.  She'd only bought it at the match a few months earlier, so it was in mint condition.  In 2054 she'd got more than three hundred quid for it: thank you, inflation.  And letting such a prized souvenir go had only hurt a bit.

The Doctor looked as though he wanted to ask more, but something made him stop.  He sighed.  "What's all this about, Ace?"

"Doesn't have to be about anything, does it?"

"What did you do?"

"What do you mean?  I bought us tickets for a gig – isn't against the law, you know!"

"I _mean_ , what is it that you're buttering me up to tell me?"

Ace panicked, thinking that the Doctor had somehow peered through her thoughts and found the one thing she wanted to say but couldn't.  But the panic only lasted a moment; the expression on the Doctor's face didn't match up with that particular theory.  Instead he looked stern and suspicious.  "You think...hang on.  You think I'm taking you out to a show just to make up for some-some _wrong thing_ I did?"

He arched an expectant brow.  He seemed to be waiting for the big confession.

"Oh, you are bang out of order," Ace said, trying to contain a surge of anger.  She glanced around, aware of the other people in the queue nearby, and she stepped closer and lowered her voice to a dangerous murmur.  "Do you always assume there's a hidden agenda when someone does something nice?"

Of course, there _was_ an agenda at work here.  Sort of.  But that wasn't the point.

The Doctor's stern expression slipped, leaving him looking confused, even a touch startled.  "I, er–"

"Yeah.  You.  Er."  Ace turned away.  "That's just bloody perfect.  I've been planning this for nearly a month!  My big surprise.  Do something fun for my best friend – _that's_ my bloody agenda, by the way.  And what do I get in return?  'You've been a naughty girl, Ace, haven't you?'"

"Ace–"

"Should I be more pissed off with the accusation or the patronising?" she bit.  "God!  You know what?"  She dragged the tickets out of her jacket pocket.  "You can go to the show on your own, 'cause I'm–"

Her words were arrested when the Doctor reached an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.  Probably that was his intention: to surprise her out of her anger.  She sensed him press a kiss to her forehead, and the wind left her sails.  Ace was becalmed.

"Okay," she mumbled, "last time you did that you buggered off and left me."

"Not this time," he replied.  He pulled back enough to look at her.  "I'm not patronising you.  I'm merely applying my own standards."  He cast about, looking bewildered and upset.  "Usually, when I make an effort like this – usually I'm trying to say 'sorry'."  He winced at whatever thoughts were running through his mind and added, "Sometimes for the things I haven't even done yet."

"Well that's not what's happening here."

He nodded.  "Actually it is."  He nudged her forehead with his own.  "Sorry," he whispered.  Then he pulled back.

Ace sighed the anger and confusion away.  "Fine.  You're forgiven."  She tucked the tickets back in her pocket.

He was quiet for a while as they shuffled closer to the theatre's entrance.  Then he said, "I'm just not used to this."

"No."

"Being surprised with a night out."

"I know," Ace said.

"I'm not sure I'm very good at it.  Being surprised."

"Oh, I can help you out there.  You're not.  At all."

He glanced at her and reached to hold her hand.  "Who's George Bridgetower again?" he asked casually.

Ace opened her mouth to reply, caught herself, closed it, and huffed her exasperation.

~~~

 

_Garden Hall of the Augarten, Vienna  
May 1803_

 

Five hours later they were attending a very different kind of gig.  For a start, it was unfathomably early in the day: barely eight am.  For seconds, the opulence of Vienna's stately architecture made Hackney look like a right old dump.  The gig-goers were all flouncing round in their early nineteenth century finery, not a dreadlock in sight.

Beethoven, the deaf German with the mad hair, was about to debut his newest sonata, accompanied on the violin by one George Bridgetower: the virtuoso whose life story Ace and the Doctor had just enjoyed in jazz-opera form in twenty-first century London.  Since they had at their disposal a time machine, it had seemed sensible to come and see the man himself play.

"Are we having fun?" Ace asked, as the Doctor fidgeted in his seat and looked, for all the world, as if he was very impatient for everything to get started.

"Hmm?  Oh, most assuredly."  He leaned in and added, under his breath, "Remind me not to wave at Ludwig.  He won't recognise me in this body."

"Name-dropper.  Sit on your hands or something."  She smirked at the glare the Doctor gave her.  "You know this piece?  Sonata number nine?"

"I'll tell you when I hear it," the Doctor said.

"Well here's the background.  This guy, George Bridgetower – he's about to play one of the most difficult pieces for violin that was ever written."

"Oh yes?"

"And he's going to play it by sight.  Never seen or heard the piece before today.  There's been no rehearsals.  He's just going to walk up there, look over Beethoven's shoulder, and play what's written on the sheet music."

"Impressive."

"Not kidding.  In front of a crowd?  Beethoven himself tinkling the ivories?"  She leaned closer.  "So anyway, Beethoven sometimes gives his music nicknames.  You know?  Like 'Moonlight' for a sonata."

"Well, using numbers all the time probably gets boring."

"Right.  And this piece we're about to hear – Beethoven's already named it in honour of George Bridgetower."

"A charming gesture."

Ace wrinkled her nose.  "You'd think."

"No?"

"No, it is.  I s'pose.  It's just that old Ludwig decided to make his dedication using an offensive term.  Might as well have called it 'Sonata for my great mate who is a funny colour.'"

"Ah."

"But they weren't that enlightened about racist slurs in the eighteen hundreds."

"Well, give them time."

"Why?  Right is right and wrong is wrong."  A memory intruded, swiftly and vividly: Manisha, no longer screaming as the ambulance carted her away because she'd passed out from the pain.  Flashing blue lights in the smoky darkness, and the thick smell of things burning that should not burn...Ace blinked and swallowed the anguish down.

She felt pressure at her knee; the Doctor had reached to touch her.

"I hate bigots," Ace murmured.

"So do I."

She shook the memories off.  "So anyway, back to me showing off my knowledge.  After this very gig, Ludwig and George are going to have a falling out.  Over a woman.  Where there's racism there's usually sexism too, right?  George is going to say something _really_ shitty about a friend of the Lud-meister's.  Beethoven'll go off in a huff and change the dedication on his sonata.  And just to stick the knife in, he'll change it to name-drop the nice socially-acceptable white bloke everyone _thinks_ is the top violinist right now.  Kreutzer, the guy's called."

"Ah.  Rodolphe."

Ace sighed and her shoulders slumped.  "You know this story."

"Not a whisper.  Carry on."

"Okay, so this guy, Kreutzer – he'll take one look at the score for this sonata and say, 'Bollocks to that!  Too many squiggly notes.  I'm off for some _Wiener Schnitzel_.'"  Ace paused.  "I'm paraphrasing."

"Understood."

"So the guy who ends up with the dedication never even plays the thing.  And the moral of this story–"

"There's a moral?"

"Yeah.  And it's this.  Don't go talking shit about women.  For one thing, because if you're not a corn-fed white boy it won't take much of an excuse for the bigwigs to drop you like a stone.  And for another thing–"

"Right is right and wrong is wrong?"

"Exactly."

"I shall endeavour to remember this," the Doctor said solemnly.  Then, after a moment, he spoiled everything by adding, "And thank you for choosing such a lovely setting for my telling-off."

Ace blinked.  "What?"

He leaned in, keeping his voice down as the other concert-goers settled in their seats.  "I mean, I get the message.  I can be a bit of a know-it-all."

She shook her head.  "I wasn't trying to..."   Words failed her, and she puffed her cheeks out as she exhaled.  "Okay.  You just missed the point.  Spectacularly."  She glared at him.  "That's twice in two gigs you've spoiled things!"

The Doctor stared at her.  "Um.  You weren't trying to give me a dose of my own medicine?"

"Of course I bloody wasn't!"  She glanced around and lowered her voice.  "I mean, it's nice to be the one with some information for a change."  She sat back and hunched her shoulders.  "But I was _trying_ to be interesting.  Entertaining."

Next to her, the Doctor sighed.  "Oh.  Ace, I don't–"

"Doesn't matter," she said quickly.

"No, I mean–"

"Seriously.  Doesn't matter.  Let's just get this out the way, write it off to experience.  And I promise never to try to do something nice for you, ever again.  Cross my heart."

He sighed again.  "I misunderst–"

"It's fine."

A pause.  "We did establish that I'm not accomplished at–"

"No argument here."

Around them, in the morning sunshine that streamed through the windows of the Garden Hall, polite applause heralded the arrival of the two stars.  Ace felt the Doctor turn his attention to the stage.  Moments later, his hand reached for hers and squeezed.  She hesitated, then squeezed back.  This was supposed to be an exercise in demonstrating maturity and appreciation.  If the Doctor insisted on torpedoing her good intentions, fine.  She'd rise above it.

Of course, there was another way of looking at things: without meaning to, the Doctor had engineered a set of circumstances where he owed her.  In game theory terms, Ace could use that.  Mind you, it wasn't as if she could honestly claim that there was no secret agenda.  If the Doctor was guilty of looking for a hidden message, his only real error was in the detail.

But those were thoughts to review later, when it was just her and her notebook.  For the moment, they were here for the music.

And good grief, but Beethoven really did have the _maddest_ hair...

~~~

 

_Vienna  
August 1993_

 

They returned to the TARDIS after the performance, the Doctor still humming the main theme of the sonata.  He seemed to have forgotten the way he'd put his foot in it, although he was suspiciously enthusiastic when she suggested they finish their visit to Vienna with some sightseeing.

They dematerialised long enough for the TARDIS to exchange 1803 for 1993.  This, in turn, allowed Ace to exchange her nineteenth century frock for a more comfortable outfit.  Then they walked from the Augarten to the Wiener Riesenrad: a tall Ferris wheel which offered commanding views over the capital.  It had been there since the eighteen hundreds and had become an iconic landmark.

"Have you been up here before?" Ace asked the Doctor, as the gondola they shared with six other tourists neared the apex of the wheel.

"Not this one," he said.  He was looking north east, towards the wide reaches of the busy Danube.  "There's a splendid wheel on the third moon of Rinys Cavel which makes use of the shallow atmosphere there.  The pods are made of a transparent polycarbide which reacts to air pressure and light wavelength.  Provides quite the show.  The wheel's just over five kilometres in diameter, and when the pod lifts into the vacuum..."  He tailed off.  "What?"

"Nothing," Ace said wearily.  "Sounds great.  We'll have to go sometime."

The Doctor paused, then he looked out over the rooftops.  "Of course," he said carefully, "the third moon of Rinys Cavel doesn't have the kind of architecture you could spend a lifetime admiring.  And you can look at stars anywhere."

She hid a smile.  Sometimes the Doctor was more sensitive than his alien otherness might suggest.

It was early afternoon when they stepped off the Ferris wheel.  They took a stroll down to the Donaukanal, then crossed it by the Schwedenbrücke and continued into the heart of Vienna's central district.

"The Hotel Sacher," the Doctor announced, as they stood and gazed at its impressive façade.  "And no, I haven't been here before either."

Ace grinned.  "They have their own cake.  It's got chocolate and apricot jam."

"It would be rude not to sample some," the Doctor said.

They went inside.  Ace was glad she'd dressed up a bit.  As usual, none of the staff seemed in the least perturbed by the Doctor's uncoordinated jacket, trousers and waistcoat combo.  Ace was merely relieved that he hadn't gone back to his question-mark tank top since Colonis.

They were shown to a table and ordered coffee and cake.  The setting was elegant without being so refined that Ace might feel self-conscious.  The cake was excellent.

"Anything else planned?" the Doctor asked, as they left the hotel's café and began to make their meandering way back towards the Augarten and the TARDIS.

"Nah, that's it.  Two gigs, a nice view of Vienna and some choccy cake."  Putting it like that, Ace wondered whether she hadn't made rather a poor job of her attempt to do something nice for the Doctor.

He put an arm around her shoulders and they paused, halfway across the Schwedenbrücke spanning the canal, to look over the railing.  Below them, tour boats were coming and going.  The lower canalside walkways were covered in colourful graffiti.

"Of course," he said, staring straight ahead, "the first time is always the one most prone to mishaps."

Ace's eyebrows arched.  "What exactly are we talking about?"

"My un-birthday present," he said blithely.  Then: "Why, what did you think I was talking about?"

"Didn't have a clue," Ace fibbed.

"I'll do better next time."

She tut-tutted.  "Right."

"Not, of course, that I deserve a next time."

"Right again."

"Being the most egregious blaggard in the history of blaggardry."

She smiled.  "You're definitely the most manipulative one."

His arm hugged her close.  "Thank you for my surprise."

Warm together, they watched the boats on the canal.

~~~~~~


End file.
